I Appreciate You
by Shimizu-Akira
Summary: Inspired by the Spiderman alley scene. Sam walks through the wrong neighborhood. Thankfully, someone's watching out for her.


_I do not own rights to "Danny Phantom", or music by Virgin Black._

***

Samantha Manson sighed as she brought her hood low over her face, trying to protect the earphones nestled in her ears from water damage from the rain. It was early in the evening, but because of the heavy gray rain clouds, the night time crept up quick on the town of Amity Park. She had spent the whole afternoon playing "Doom" with her best friend Tucker Foley.

Sam looked down at her MP3 player and selected the album "Requiem-Mezzo Forte" by Virgin Black before looking back up and facing the cracked and dirty sidewalk that she was walking along. She immersed herself in her own world as the mix of metal and opera entertained her ears.

At some point, Sam looked up and found that she was walking through a rough part of town. She must have let herself get too carried away with her music to notice. Sam knew she could just as easily have called for her chauffeur to pick her up and drive her back. She shook her head. No; some part of her ego just wouldn't allow her to take such a luxury reminiscent of the self-indulgent culture that she despised so much.

Sam shook her head and walked along. She could have called her other best friend, Danny Fenton. He could have walked with her and at least give her a sense of security, but it was getting late and she didn't want to bother him. Oh well. Before she knew it, she would be home.

"Hey, sexy thing." Sam felt a shudder and turned her head slightly to the left. In her peripheral vision, she spotted from behind a small handful of guys following casually along. If she saw correctly, their attire lightly suggested a less than casual demeanor. Sam decided to try to ignore them.

"Hey, c'mon, we just wanna talk to ya, that's all." Sam shuddered again. She kept walking, and ignored them still. Maybe when they saw that she wasn't interested in talking, they would leave her alone.

After a few more steps, she noticed that she couldn't hear them walking anymore. And that's when it happened.

One grimy hand clamped over her mouth while a rather burly arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her into a side alley. All Sam could do was scream and shout, but her voice barely left the confines of the fingers binding her mouth. The terrified girl tried to wrestle out of their arms but their grip was like iron. They slammed her against a wall and turned her around. It was three guys. One had on a jean jacket, while the other two wore black hoodies.

The guy with the jean jacket shook his head. "Honey, if you'd just talked to us, we wouldn't have had to do that now, would we?" The two guys in hoodies laughed as they held her against the wall by her arms and waist. Jean Jacket must've been the head of this trio, while Hood One and Hood Two were probably his lackeys.

In response, Sam kicked her foot out and connected with Jean Jacket's crotch. The thug bent over and swore loudly. He reached up and sharply smacked Sam in the cheek. Tears were now threatening to leak from her eyes, but Sam would not give them that satisfaction.

"Ohhh," Jean Jacket growled in a heavy voice, "you're gonna pay for that." He produced a switchblade from his pocket and stormed over to Sam. He tore open her hoodie, exposing her to the soaking chill of the cold wind and rain.

Sam winced at the cold metallic touch of the blade caressing her neck and ripping her dog collar off, and pressed herself flat against the wall. She wanted to be anywhere but here. How ironic that of all the times she'd been in danger, this was one of the few times where she faced the cruelty of human beings and not ghosts.

And just when everything seemed bleak, a new shadow darkened the alley.

Sam felt Hood One's grip on her disappear, as though he'd been nothing but a hologram. All she heard was a shriek. She looked over at Jean Jacket and Hood Two. Jean Jacket hissed something in Spanish. Hood Two kept a tight hold on Sam but began to look around him. All three's attention was suddenly directed deeper into the dark alley at the sound of a crash. Hood One had landed face first in a dumpster, and judging by the sound of the impact, he wouldn't be moving for a while.

Hood Two produced his own knife, this one being a thick hunting knife, and pressed it against Sam's jugular. Sam froze, afraid of provoking this man's wrath. "Man, what's goin' on?" She wasn't quite sure what was happening herself, but then her mind was in too much of a panic to really concentrate at the moment.

Jean Jacket began to look in all directions around the confines of the alley. "I don't know what it is, but I don't like it."

Almost in response, Sam felt the hunting knife disappear from her throat and sensed Hood Two's tight hand melt from her arm. This, too, was accompanied by a scream. It was just her and Jean Jacket now.

Jean Jacket grabbed Sam by the arm and stabbed his own knife against Sam's throat. "I don't know what you are, man, but you better show yourself or little Miss Evanescence here won't be goin' to the next Gothapalooza." It was now that Sam fully realized what was going on.

Her suspicions were confirmed when out of the darkness a pair of smoldering green eyes materialized in front of them. Jean Jacket tried to sound confident as he backed himself and Sam against a wall. "So the mighty Inviso-Bill comes to the rescue? C'mon, where's the rest of you?" In response, a new glowing body materialized around the eyes. The being wore a black jumpsuit with white gloves, boots and a collar, complete with a stylish D on his chest, and although he had the face of a fourteen year old, his hair was paper white like that of an old man. "Dang, man, I didn't know you looked so young. It's amazing how a little kid can take down all them ghosts all the time." The ghost boy said nothing but glared with a burning hatred at Sam's attacker.

Without warning, Jean Jacket whipped out a six-shooter from his ankle and fired point blank, while Sam could only look away, afraid of what she might witness. He shot four rounds, but the ghost simply vanished from sight, allowing the bullets to pass through the space he occupied and explode harmlessly against the alley wall. Jean Jacket was speechless. The ghost boy reappeared, his eyes still flashing green with rage. Jean Jacket raised the weapon again, ready to fire, but his adversary was already ahead of him. Sam felt the sensation of wind passing through her as the ghost boy moved directly through her. She heard Jean Jacket shriek, and felt the knife fall away from her neck. She turned around and saw the ghost boy slam Jean Jacket against the wall like a sack of potatoes. His face was paler than hers had been at the start of the whole ordeal.

The ghost boy finally spoke. His voice was that of a normal teenager, but the pubescent pitch was dwarfed by the deadly calm rage that was evident in his countenance. "I should rip your very soul apart right now." Sam's nose wrinkled as it picked up a musty stench. She looked down and noticed that a wet spot was growing over Jean Jacket's crotch.

The ghost boy turned around and looked at Sam. She suddenly shook her head vigorously. She knew he was asking permission, but she wouldn't allow blood on her hands or his. "If I find you within even a mile of her, believe me, I will." With that, he turned his back and faced Sam. He turned back with an afterthought and added, "And the name's not Inviso-Bill, it's Danny Phantom."

The remaining thug sat ashen-faced against the wall for a few seconds before he realized his advantage and remembered the gun still in his hand. He snapped his weapon up in the air and aimed at the back of the ghost boy's head. "Whatever! Ghost Boy's a punk, man!"

Sam felt her heart rise into her throat as she watched Jean Jacket raise his gun at her rescuer. Jean Jacket cocked the hammer back, his index finger milliseconds away from pulling the trigger. The ghost boy whipped his head around at the sound and, as if by instinct, released a bright-as-day energy flare at the thug.

Sam raised a hand to her mouth in shock. She looked over at Jean Jacket, who lay flattened against the wall. Judging by the looks of things, he wouldn't be moving for a while.

Her hero turned around to face her again. "Are you alright?"

Sam collapsed into an embrace in his waiting arms, ready to sob her eyes out. "I thought you'd never show, Danny."

Her best friend, the ghost boy, Danny Phantom, smiled at her. "Next time, call me," he said to her softly.

Sam smothered her face against his shoulder. "You need to work on your timing just a bit."

A loud set of footsteps echoed from the entrance to the alley. Someone was coming.

Sam was the one to act this time. She pressed a surprised Danny against the wall and began working her magic with his lips. In his confusion, two bright rings of light separated at his waist and spanned his height, revealing his civilian form as Danny Fenton, which was the exact response she wanted.

For a few seconds he was pressed back against the wall, stunned, but slowly went with the flow. Whether he was going at it for real or just playing along didn't matter at the moment.

Sam kept Danny against the wall with her back facing whoever was coming. She could feel their eyes on her and Danny, and finally heard a snicker followed by a shuffling of feet.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief and stepped back, leaving a slightly less confused Danny still backed against the alley wall. "Um, was that part entirely necessary?" Danny wasn't sure how to take it, but he admitted to himself that part of him enjoyed it.

Sam thought about it. "Er, yes." She couldn't lie to herself. Compared to their previous "fake-out make-outs", this time she'd performed with more passion than she'd allowed herself in the past. She definitely knew that she indeed enjoyed it.

She stopped and felt his right arm. "Danny, you're bleeding!"

Danny glanced down at the bleeding cut on his arm with nonchalance. "Yeah, one of them nicked me with his knife as I was grabbing him."

Sam, though, was more worried about the mark. "We need to clean that up immediately. How could you take it like that?"

Danny looked down at her and smiled. While nobody else in Amity Park expressed any interest or gratitude for the damage he sustained in the name of protecting them, Sam was the one to raise the fuss. He realized at this moment that besides Tucker and his sister Jazz, Sam showed the most concern and appreciation for him, even if the rest of the time she pretended she didn't care that much.

Sam looked up from her friend's bleeding arm into his eyes, and realized something as well. She'd seen the fire in Danny's eyes tonight, and he'd only shown that fire once before when she'd broken his heart to break him out of a love spell. She knew now that with every ounce of strength that he had, Danny would never let anything happen to her. She also knew that as long as they were friends, she would never stop caring for him. In fact, maybe she would do more than that…

Danny flashed back into his ghostly form and took her hand. Sam blinked at the bright flash of light and smiled at him, laughing. It wasn't until now that she realized she was soaked, whereas because of his form Danny's uniform wasn't even touched (although rain drops were streaming from his drenched snowy white hair). They laughed together, just as Danny placed his other hand on her waist, like a dance.

"Come on, Sam, let's get you out of here."


End file.
